TVK 77 Ear Candy

[StratOcastle]

EAR CANDY

The Virtual Kingdom ~ Age 77

*8-track

Avian War Hero ~*Turntablism
Elf Heretic ~*Reggaeton
Elf Sage ~ Deep House
Faery Rogue ~*Electric Blues
Dwarf Undead ~ Crust Punk

CD

Elf Mystic ~*Baroque
Faery Heretic ~ Lo-fi
Halfling Rogue ~ Salsa
Human Warrior ~*Renaissance
Orc Tactician ~ Bubblegum Pop

Cassette

Avian Tactician ~ Acid Jazz
Dwarf Undead ~ Honky Tonk
Faery Paladin ~*Qawwali
Halfling Paladin ~ Jingles
Orc Paladin ~ Opera

Vinyl

Elf Mystic ~ Chillwave
Faery Heretic ~ Ska
Halfling Rogue ~ Trance
Human Warrior ~*Avant-Garde
Orc Tactician ~ Doo Wop

Streaming

Avian War Hero ~ Dirty South
Dwarf Undead ~ Goth
Dwarf Sage ~ Bebop
Halfling Mystic ~ Ambient*
Human Sage ~ Shoegaze

Edit 1: dwarf and faery switch paladin and sage roles

[StratOcastle]

Hello.

Welcome to age 77, The Virtual Kingdom. To start off, I didn't try to get groovy with elf tac or other life saving measures since Clear Sight is categorically stymied this age. What I did do was balance core speed and reassert *middle(nw)* control by way of 3 dwarf undead. I had contemplated their utility last age, but this age the undead get parity in offensive and defensive losses. One reason for this decision was to have a combative elite type province that was somewhat resistant to Nightmare and an elite that's more difficult to ambush. It's not that I feel I've discovered anything remarkable, but was done to create a greater number of problems for the enemy.

I'm not enamored by elves as much as there's a need to present capability in a plethora of spell casting fields. Spec defense on t/ms doesn't inspire my confidence, so my sober reasoning is based in top feed pragmatism. Without abduction to babysit armies there's a narrower venue to operating outside of war. The solution is to take land; you know what I mean? We have to think "up".

The 3 paladin distribution is center mass in regard to GMT swing. The racial shared spells are Greater Protection, Town Watch and Reflect Magic.

Now this *middle* I'm referring is simple, but represents a transcendence in meaning that probably comes off confusing. Allow a moment to digress; I've often found congruence of factors that interrelate across supposedly unrelated factors. To point, we might be able to figure out what flavors someone prefer in food by the gun they use and ammunition they prefer,.. by the music they enjoy both in tempo and tone and the devices they prefer to listen, including speaker size and composition. Harmonics. If any of you are familiar with target shooting, there's some level of consideration to barrel harmonics.

So it is in Utopia that I'll refer to the "middle" in a multitude of phases. What I'm looking at is the duality of dwarf and halfling in functional congruence, or victory algorithm. On the surface we have a 7/5 and 5/7 elite which is 1 point above total elite points(defense + offense/elite) in all races. Now nw gurus may laugh at this point, but this simply represents the "tide" effect of flat mechanics. Anything that passes through the elite gauntlet of 4 dwarves and 4 halflings will likely exert more resources combatively to overcome this logistic. This is where we establish strategic foundation. We should lean toward pragmatism, but the dwarf and halfling offer us the fundamental.

In TVK I expressed my admiration for a kingdom called A Mothers Advice/Polar Bears. One of their signature kingdom designs was a breadth of nw center elves, with cows and killers above and "name-your-race" core below, depending on age mechanics. If you hit the nw tab you'd see this daunting belt of elves across the mid nw that was like a gate to crash if you wanted to defeat AMA. I'd imagine the duality of this middle lay anchors on the enemy cows with high penetration ops, and presented a defensive barrier to the enemy core.

Duality exists not just in how the dwarf and halfling work together but what the kingdom defends through aggressive doctrine. We're in an age with limited Clear Sight availability and plague immunity is exclusive to the undead. We know our halfers will be targets just as we must target halfers for t/m survivability. This is that defensive/offensive miasma we employ to focus on military objectives. If we ideally have dwarves and halfers center nw then the wider strategic idiom is to make every action the enemy attempts against this center a stretch. Make it logistically costly to engage the center and the center will engage the enemy that works against our flanks. We want to hammer out venues where the 7/5 elite can break all enemies and sabotage raceways for low resistance.

[StratOcastle]

The Circle of GMT

We use a progressive wave in TVK called the elliptical wave. Each division of 5 provinces represents a time zone. When we look at the 8-track division we may think t/m heavy and the Streaming division as attacker heavy, but these divisions coalesce to the same degree as they do with the CD and Vinyl divisions.

Several of the characteristics of TVK were developed to address what ails many lower tier kingdoms. The elliptical wave was designed first to offer agreeable prime activity to players around the world. The elliptical wave also avoids the critical failure of the Oops! bug by elective dispersion. We operate 24/7. There is no wave time. Our actions begins at beginning of age and ends at the first eowcf. In each instance the GMT inertia will evolve into a natural form as the kingdom exits eowcf. Strategic posture exiting eowcf is based in resource distribution and threat level in accordance with collective Snatch News to assess the prevailing environment.

The division system was based in experience with full wave kingdoms of the highest order being dissected by kingdoms that used superior micro. The order of battle is immediate and opportunistic. Divisions are encouraged to take the initiative, using their unique blend of capabilities to achieve objectives.
The divisions are a representation of not just players from around the world but specifically players from fragmented kingdoms. Over the ages I've witnessed the retirement or dissolution of enough kingdoms that I feel we have a silent core of players left astray. They join new kingdoms and adopt new culture with no respect or regard for their heritage. My solution was to create a template that mimics the working ethnic Burroughs of the largest and most prominent metropolises in our world. This cultural retention is intended to enhance friendly competition within the kingdom and a way to learn alternative strategies and tactics.

The personality and racial spread is specifically The Virtual Kingdom cultural template. It is both an act of pageantry to celebrate the balance in Utopia, and a learning tool. The template allows us to see the entire spread of capability and offers the player to work with chemistry they've never experienced before. Like The Faery Circle was an all faery kingdom, TVK is maximum breadth of race and personality.

[StratOcastle]

The Working Model

Strategic influence can come from many sources. If we understand the use of tanks in WW2 we see the best use was not to engage in tank to tank battle but to encircle, with artillery and infantry used to destroy enemy tanks. Interpreting what a tank equals in Utopia is not as simple as heavy attackers, but a concept of resource expenditure. Still, we know there were tank aces responsible for besting a great number of opposition tanks and we can interpret these in game as rovers. But I digress. The better way to approach this is to look at the actual generals available, army available, ops, sabotage and regard the occupying force of your enemy nw/acres/capability/resources as the encirclement objective. Thus, when you see an enemy t/m array you can't bite off more than you can chew and expect victory. You operate within these sectors with deliberate goals and exploit weaknesses to bring alternative logistics to engage.

I've learned to leave no one alone. As a heavy attacker I've dropped potshots on enemy faeries like Lightning Strike and time to time it gets through. If it gets through I follow up with selective ops and sabotage to probe for weakness.

[RattleHead]

3 Avian - 1 Paladin, 1 War Hero, 1 Undead
4 Dwarf - 2 Tactician, 1 Heretic, 1 Mystic
4 Elf - 2 Sage, 1 Mystic, 1 Heretic
4 Faery - 2 Rogue, 1 Heretic, 1 Mystic
3 Halfling - 1 Rogue, 1 Paladin, 1 Undead
4 Human - 1 Sage, 2 Warrior, 1 Undead
3 Orc - 1 Paladin, 1 War Hero, 1 Warrior

Heretic 3/3 - 1 each of Dwarf, Elf, Fae... The latter two seem more obvious, but Dwarf BE bonus can come in handy with a high wizard population, although its generally nicer for thieves, Heretic perk kind of dims the value of the BE bonus for TDs, though their value still cannot be overstated
Mystic 3/3 - see above
Paladin 3/3 - get all 3 of the 'fancy' Racial spells; TW, RM, Fanat
Rogue 3/3 - Halfling gotta do, and same with Faery tbh... if I could do 4x fae rogue I would :D
Sage 3/3 - Human Sage is clear choice, Elf is anti-Sage... need Sage to have Amnesia, need Elf to cast it on a Sage
Tactician 2/2 - Dwarf saving rax acres... orrr using them to great effect! Plus, you gotta have the intels
Undead 3/3 - Halfer will get some extra juice out of Animate, Avian is always natural fit for me, and Human because I wanted my 3rd Orc to have Bloodlust
War Hero 2/2 - 1 Orc, 1 Avian... I feel like spreading these around, along with the Paladin(ie; the 'support' casters), can enhance the 'whack-a-mole' effect for my opponents :)
Warrior 3/3 - Humans become the apex predator as Warrior, since my Avian and Orc are kinda tied up in support roles(Orc still gets a nod)


TM HQ
Faery Rogue
Faery Rogue
Halfling Rogue
Faery Mystic
Elf Mystic
Faery Heretic
Elf Heretic

Support Attackers - WH/PFs to pave the way on chains, Paladins keep protections up on TMs, Halfling focuses on TW during war
Avian Paladin
Halfling Paladin
Orc Paladin
Orc War Hero
Avian War Hero

Spearhead Attackers - who gets to go first? one of these guys.
Orc Warrior
Human Warrior
Human Warrior
Human Sage

Assault Attackers - Amnesia enemy attackers and Rogues, combine with NMs and then NS run ... feast on scraps from chains to preserve tpa/wpa, but have enough practical offence to hit other attackers your size
Elf Sage
Elf Sage
Dwarf Heretic
Dwarf Mystic

Forlorn Hope - Often used to open relations, sacrificial lambs that will kick and scream if someone takes the bait
Human Undead
Avian Undead
Dwarf Tactician
Dwarf Tactician
Halfling Undead

[StratOcastle]

I bow to you RattleHead. Comprehensive and well thought out. ~ You did the halfer undead :) this is one I would play and certainly contemplated for TVK. The dwarf tac to, but I've played it before. Wonderful province strat.

@ All - RattleHead should be considered a superior kingdom builder to yours truly and he offers what I encourage all players to do: expression of ideals, so we can share and learn.

This brings me to the virtue of initiative.

I'm a Dio fan and if you listen to his music you know there are common themes. There are riddles in the rhyme, sometimes with shared meanings. Let's look at one.

While singing for Black Sabbath the group released Heaven & Hell. There are lines addressing the problems with idolatry which speak to me, but here we're concerned with the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

"Love can be seen as the answer
But nobody bleeds for the dancer"

To task is when we choose to bleed. "The dancer" ideally can be understood as the arts; expression of beauty and truth. It can also literally refer to the least of our brethren in club dancers; prostitutes that suffer as the undertow of society dredges beneath their feet. Oftentimes these people say they only feel free when dancing, btw.

"And they'll tell you black is really white
The moon is just the sun at night
And when you walk in golden halls
You get to keep the gold that falls
It's Heaven and Hell

No no fool, fool!
You got to bleed for the dancer!
Fool, fool, look for the answer!
Fool, fool, fool!"

Now that we can back off the serious-pedal, let's apply the concept of initiative to Utopia. The lines above referring "golden halls" is the cowards life granted by kingdoms who bully their way around the server, securing other kingdoms resources. They might get bent out of shape when you retaliate, as if you've no right. Other are as stoic as robots. This is immaterial to me because my entire playing doctrine is based in retal. There is no kingdom in the game of any higher power level that I haven't retaliated. Your capitulation is service to their phenomenal strength. My purpose in TVK template is to guide players to embrace these challenges as the reason to play Utopia.

It begins with the first indication that intel is taken from our kingdom. You should initiate yellow alert. Basically I was on red alert the entire age, but we can't expect everyone to be in perpetual readiness. My motto is "never ready, always ready to go". That meant I'd go to war regardless of my raggedy condition. As you can imagine, running a province on pure retal as locomotion involves lots of conflict with superior opposition.

We should react to what threatens kingdom culture.

To be continued... ;) and back.

I may've mentioned that TVK wasn't intended as my kingdom. I'd probably not be fit since I'm not one to use bots or com systems, I never attack unprovoked, I try to grow through pure retal and I'd rather war than CF. For me, it's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase. That said, my effort is to express the value of making compromises only in rare circumstances. I don't have all the answers, but I've learned the most facing competition I've had no chance in defeating. My opinion is you push great kingdoms until they're forced to show you why they're great. This isn't a matter of disrespect: I know a great kingdom when we engage. My mission is to see them shine and the best way to do that is to concentrate on winning.

Great kingdoms often have impressive diplomacy and can lull you into a false sense of respect by CF negotiations, or try enducing fear with multi-age threats. They might even be capable, but this shouldn't deter your resolve. To compete in a vacuum of non-competitiveness at the behest of a few great kingdoms is to deprive oneself from playing at the highest levels. If you're going to compete for crowns you have to see the best kingdoms at their most vicious.

[StratOcastle]

Elliptical Wave Pattern

The elliptical wave pattern, based on a 12 hour sequence, is roughly 4.8 hours apart/division:



*1. 8-track - combat group option v
2.*
3. Vinyl - combat group focus point >
4.
5. CD - combat group option ^
6.
7.*
8. Streaming - combat group option v
9. combat group focus point >
10. Cassette - combat group option ^
11.
12.*
13. 8-track - combat group option v
14.
15. Vinyl - combat group focus point >
16.*
17. CD - combat group option ^
18.
19.
20. Streaming - combat group option v
21. combat group focus point >
22. Cassette - combat group option ^
23.
24.

As expected, the wave pattern can tighten through war stance, attack type, ritual and player attack +/-.

You can visualize how the wave appears fixed, but will drift and coagulate in action. Each division has a member of council; one of which(one of the 5) is the wave coordinator. While each division is an entity unto itself, the wave coordinator can organize a combat group in the 1st, 3rd and 5th focused on the 3rd; the 8th and 10th focused on the 9th; the 13th, 15th and 17th focused on the 15th; and the 20th and 22nd focused on the 21st. These groups do not have to include the entire division, but the elements deemed necessary to achieve an objective. This also allows players with flexible schedules to partake in combined strategies. Groups can be partitioned down to individual generals and troop counts as well as ops/sabotage and logistical backing.

[StratOcastle]

StratOLab

Despite retirement I've created a province to run one of the builds through its paces. Yes, dwarf undead is easy, but I'm retired. I'd like to remind the reader that a dwarf out of beginning of age protection could have change build 3 times. Most importantly, the dwarf is producing off it's first build in 8 ticks. Therefor, if you're offered war by a dwarf kingdom OOP you might consider the resouce yield they've accumulated.

[StratOcastle]

Kingdom Council

Ambassador
Chief of Staff
Director of Intelligence
Economic Chair
Supreme Allied Commander

Ambassador - The meta potential of diplomacy makes ambassador a very important role in kingdom. Responsibilities include securing both mechanical and figurative CFs. Advanced options include alliance negotiations and tutoring players on inter-kingdom conduct and communications.

Chief of Staff - The overall moral compass and general of "keeping up with the Jones's". Knowing how the kingdom matches up with the competition and assessing danger potential is just part of the job. Everybody should be concerned with keeping the kingdom glue fresh and tight, but the chief of staff also oversees council to assure constructive, fair and hospitable interaction in session.

Director of Intelligence - Every province in kingdom is expected to Snatch News from a particular kingdom throughout the age. The director of intelligence can look forward to researching intel to see trends and movements through the eyes of kingdoms across the server. While all council members can use a helping hand, the director of intelligence will require a staff of willing participants to compartmentalize relevant information. The ability to interpret SN is both art and skill. It's my personal hope to nurture more players into this skill set for the quality of the game. SN is an essential tool in micro.

Economic Chair - The economic chair doesn't just assess kingdom resources, but also helps in recommending superior build strategies and ritual and dragon funding. Advanced options include honor and science navigation.

Supreme Allied Commander - This is the elliptical wave engineer. The supreme allied commander secures divisions to objective commitments through strategic correspondence. The work includes direct leadership in splinter and combat groups, recommendations for campers and rovers and modifying objectives based in divisional success and failure.

In conclusion, these departments work together to achieve kingdom goals through a shared and pragmatic vision quest.

[StratOcastle]

Undefined

For those of us that've ventured far and wide in Utopia, we would all agree that there are differences in build strat from top tier to war tier to bottom. These are generalizations yet with absolute consequences insofar as organization. In the bottom tier there's much more debate about what a correct defense is and how things work.

In the top or whoring tier the understanding is pretty uniform on pump itinerary. "Most" players know what they're supposed to do mechanically and then require leadership to navigate the time table or unforeseen circumstances, like heavy retal from a random. When I say "most" there are some top entities that struggle with securing an experienced roster. It's here where you'll see some fairly big mistakes happen. In my top visits I was far from mathematically literate enough to interpret the pump math, but comprehended the potential and thus eyeballed my way to some formidability. Characteristically I was deemed as fat, which is my utopian safe place, but my resource yield was very high. So much so I was sending millions of gold to t/ms to secure dragon launching and more gold to core attackers who fell short. The experienced top players didn't interact much with the core and I noticed a number of core players really lacked initiative. We all ran pretty much the same build in the core.

War tier(competitive) has a pump, but more so a wait for the right war. They aren't all looking for easy wars, and many false tag for safety and opportunity. Many of them know each other by build pattern and this coincides with their campaign. Taking every hard war is fine if you're not focused on charting. The war tier wasn't doing home pumps like whoring kingdoms, but I'd imagine they've included this in their arsenal by now. War tier is a bit varied in build, but generally conservative. In other words, you might see some hybrids.

The lower tier is where you see unique designs in build for good and bad reasons. Some good players know how to build for the environment and some don't. This is deeper than poor build strats. In fact, many poor performers are brilliant mechanical builders that suffer from the idealic haze of organized kingdoms in a tier of pragmatism. Simply put, they are Spartan with no one to phalanx.

In The Virtual Kingdom we can envision a necessary blend of tier and types because of the diversified template. What does that mean?

It means we can top pump certain provinces while preserving a functional reserve of provinces for the accidents that happen. I've warred in all tiers and learned that being uniform isn't all it's cracked up to be,.. but there's an impenetrable mental wall that prevents some kingdoms from progressing. Some have, but they have honed their craft to a zenith that makes alternatives superfluous.

Specific to The Virtual Kingdom is the idea of mainline full powered forces backed by pockets of resistance. See, I'm a pockets of resistance player. If we look at our world and the main battle forces we all secretly know they've no intention of facing each other, and for good reason. Full on mechanized conventional war in a first world scenario would be horrific. In Utopia it is common. The problem in the real world is once these highly organized mechanized units win the war of machines they must face the grueling house to house guerilla war. In Utopia this is uncommon.

If we rewind the clock to ww2 France we have an engagement where once the mechanized army was bypassed the enemy won in shocking fashion. We can parallel this in Utopia where the initial wave or solid hostile wins the war.
Later on at the Eastern Front and battles in the Pacific we see the grueling battles that take a long time. We have several examples in the nuclear age of pure guerilla nations doing alright, if at massive human cost.

Now you might be thinking I'm applying this in a wait and see strategic mode, but that's not what I'm saying. The Virtual Kingdom is by happenstance of diversity prone to multilayered approaches to conflict. We can't pull the number of heavy attackers or wall of faeries as others so the strategy is integral. To encourage the reader you'll note that supply logistics are the lifeblood of mechanized warfare. Where we might have fewer machines we can potentially have deeper reserves.

My build patterns are slop but they work. It's that I aim toward resource replenishment rather than monolithic strats. I'm familiar with heavy attacker types and feel experienced enough to take on full blown attackers as a hybrid type myself. In my age 77 build I've been attacked by a human, avian and orc thus far. So I'm seeing the breadth of challenges from speed to damage to science effect. One of my kingdom mates is going a completely different direction and this is a gift to my sensibilities. We're simply playing, but the experiments help in distilling The Virtual Kingdom characteristics. Friends in higher places keep us informed of maximums that help us gauge formidability.

[StratOcastle]

An Experimental Note

One of my kingdom mates is an ace at build strats, combat IQ and has good monarch experience both in full and micro-kingdoms. I'd never come close to his expertise in province management, or otherwise, but I also do things for a reason. One characteristic is, I don't push defense very high and I do this in the interest of retal. Though retired, I'm driven by experimentation regarding The Virtual Kingdom. Since leaving protection I've seen a few attacks and the logic of the aggressors. These are nicely built war tier combatants who've boosted their capability in a focal and effective manner. I'm running an overall strat that covers all bases if not spectacularly. I'm not recommending balance because some can get carried away with strats that don't apply to their circumstance. Retaliating heavy attackers with a decided hybrid isn't a practice for the weak of heart. To have experimental freedom one has to occupy rather unorganized and low activity kingdoms. This means the weight of coordinated reprisals are a constant threat that are often realized and no help can be expected.

Since I've run high octane builds I use my experiences with those and project from the meager build I'm running experimentally. When I've stumbled onto a fantastic build like undead sage, human and elf cleric I'm well aware of the potential based in top kingdom pump and diplomacy. Diplomacy is essential for homes pump and rising above the fray of the constant slog in the lower tier.

As of today I'm running 1 of the 18 undead dwarves so the evidence base isn't forthcoming on overall performance. This is common in off kilter builds, but it'd be nice to receive input if any are reading TVK.

In a kingdom strat like TVK the lessons of the past influence the province choices, along with age changes and how they materialized through the campaign. Human sages have been a standard in top kingdoms when appropriate. In war kingdoms they were rare with the exception of the notable Rusty; though I'm not sure of personality. The reason I've chosen dwarf undead as the center is the low losses, build speed at zero cost, plague distribution, relative defense to elite in the interest of ops and sabotage resistance. The undead spell array is ergo to dwarf since both spells are not redundant in dwarf. The dwarf makes raze tactics by enemies in war a more focal tactic since dwarves can build faster than most kingdoms wave rotation. Thus, you can't just raze dwarves and expect them to languish as other races with the high cost of buildings and porous defenses vs sabotage. So while human sages will have sterling overall capability, as evidence from the past, they won't be immune to plague, won't suffer lower losses, won't build as fast(though credits may help), and are more susceptible by elite balance and spec mechanics to Nightmare. It's not that human sage(or other personalities not dependent on casting) isn't a fantastic build, and I'm a fan, but that they make better peripheral builds to the multilayered core of TVK.

IMHO for ages humans were considered irrelevant, yet the comparative science yield would still fall in the human favor through attrition. If it were that the community was under the impression that an abducting orc was better than an abducting human, I'm not sure I'd agree with that. I think orc is conventionally what kingdoms want in a core and human requires a different approach. The odd part is that when I've run a human I've felt very well equipped, yet when facing humans I've not felt very threatened. But this goes for most core interactions I've been part. I'd say that undead war hero was consistently the toughest opponents I've squared off against. Oddly, undead war hero didn't appear to be an exceptional blend but results wise I've been defeated by them enough to notice. It's possible undead war hero attracts the type of player that's enthusiastic about the build which is one reason TVK offers a plethora of choices.

[StratOcastle]

The HQ

In this version of TVK the headquarters is the cassette division which occupies relative GMT center. Generally, this will be a European division, but that's because my experience dictates they are decidedly the most active. Suffice to say, the center division should be the most active based in historical activity potential, or whichever division is the most active based in the 9 box activity indicator on the recruitment page.

The cassette division includes all available paladins, one undead dwarf for plague distribution and camping potential, plus the lone avian tac for additional intel updates and rover objectives. The cassette division occupies GMT in close proximity to the CD and Vinyl spearhead divisions to offer timely support for likely the most violent interactions. These elements operate like most in TVK, with avian tac and dwarf undead probably running interference for the orc paladin.

[StratOcastle]

The Objectives Approach

Unlike chain waves which most of us are familiar with, the approach is defensive for offensive purposes. While chain waves can be logistically similar, they're often like a locomotive in that once they start they're hard to adjust on the fly. Great kingdoms can, good kingdoms bake it into the wave and average kingdoms oftentimes can't adapt.

Objectives per division are devised on the premise of "mine sweeping" for kingdom, with objectives being divisional goals. The analogy of mine sweeping involves defending kingdom integrity. I've already reflected on the importance of the dwarf/halfer core and the paladin array, but we apply a mine sweeping mentality to all elements of the kingdom. While objectives refer to the offensive approach, mine sweeping refers to the defensive. Both can occupy the same space as achieving an offensive goal can at times achieve defensive leverage. For instance, let's say an enemy rogue or rogues begin a concerted effort to Assassinate Wizards; a likely enemy action; we may already have the rogues as targeted objectives. The division in question can act with discrimination on that target with peripheral support from other divisions.

While the example above displays a reaction we are about initiative. We already know what rogues, heretics, etc can do, so the offensive objective is to dismantle these enemy capabilities as our ability dictates. The attacker base initiative is cross-chain max with t/m support to control the objective. Rovers and campers are here to work targets of unusual resistance or those that may present a flanking threat, including enemy campers and rovers.

For those unfamiliar with cross-chaining, it can be used in waves to great effect. TVK divisional GMT limits can use cross-chaining to maximize what we're working with. In this example we'll use the streaming division because of the glut of attacker types on tap:

Avian War Hero ~ Dirty South - assuming 2nd highest offense to nw
Dwarf Undead ~ Goth - keys off micro
Dwarf Sage ~ Bebop - assuming 3rd highest offense to nw
Halfling Mystic ~ Ambient* - trash hits if deemed beneficial
Human Sage ~ Shoegaze - assuming highest offense to nw

Cross-Chain Itinerary: EDIT! - oops, I shouldn't be watching Bloomberg while writing.

Credit ~ CRAZY PETE FOR THE CROSS-CHAINING PRINCIPAL

Human Sage - attacks 1st at max gains, 1st tap, highest gains
Avian War Hero - attacks 2nd, 1st tap, 2nd highest gains
Dwarf Sage - attacks 3rd, 1st tap, 3rd highest gains
Dwarf Sage - attacks 4th, 2nd tap, 4th highest gains
Avian War Hero - attacks 5th, 2nd tap, 5th highest gains
Human Sage - attacks 6th, 2nd tap, 6th highest gains
Dwarf Undead - can attack other or target, plague caution

As demonstrated, the Human Sage has 1st attack and highest gains, then the 6th attack at lowest. The Avian War Hero has the 2nd attack and gains, then the 5th next to lowest. Then the Dwarf Sage attacks twice in succession for the 3rd and 4th attack for near comparable gains per tap. For simplicity, think of the attack alignment as mirrored: highest first, highest last. Next highest 2nd and so forth.

At this point, if the dwarf undead target is stricken with plague and is also the cross-chain target the decision to proceed with further attacks is decided. Obviously, if the target in question is undead or already stricken with plague the dwarf undead participates in the cross-chain in offense/nw order in accordance with summation of acre yield. At no point is any province obligated to retain army home under fire, ideally. Pragmatically, there may be instances where taking fire is necessary to achieve objectives. Generally, we error to province safety. Additionally, the halfling mystic can simultaneously cast ops and invoke sabotage upon the target and/or peripheral threats.

The reason cross-chaining is effective sans Anonymity is because the target is likely left with poor ambush acreage and our chain alignment is congruent by comparable gains per attacker province. By finding ways to avoid using Anon we retain higher province honor, mana and runes so resources can be more liberally used toward Amnesia and other debilitating ops to absorb and mute enemy counter measures. Ops can be used prelude to attacks as usual and if prudent.

The decision to continue chaining despite plague is a simple YES. The plan is to fully chain with the option to engage other targets if the environment dictates. The cross-chain would then continue on the basis of breakable defense and available generals. Massacre and raze are on the table.

[StratOcastle]

Please observe the edit to cross-chaining. I was preoccupied and made a critical error in the initial alignment. Fixed.

And I apologize for not crediting Crazy Pete of 'A Mothers Advice' for showing me the cross-chain principal. Fixed.

[StratOcastle]

Experimental Note

We're experiencing some solid flack and found the first integrated kingdom strat of the age. It's hard to break with thieves and ops so I decided to look under the hood of one of their pumped provinces by spying science. I'm not here to give away specifically how the enemy operates because observers might take advantage. However, I can tell you coordinated waves are one thing and integrated strats are something else.

These are purpose built kingdoms with focal builds and science, unlike my ghetto independent strat. Now I'll have you know I've faced these strats before and have defeated them with a ghetto strat, individually. It's a no-brainer they have a massive advantage in kingdom-to-kingdom conflict. Basically I'm looking at nwpa and where the concentration of these characteristics are arranged. The strat has the weight of nwpa in a linear gauntlet with low nw t/ms above. This is a prelude to CF position where the t/ms will pump with a proposed ritual. Good assumption on their part since we aren't high activity. Still, I'm pushing for scrimmage to get a closer look at the entire operation.

Additionally, this kingdom was quick to act after a CF was accepted by another kingdom; thus displaying organization. I'm favorably impressed. I've sustained 2 marches from the kingdom we CFd and 2 more from the current wave. I mention this to convey the value of Snatch News and/or friends in your tier.

When we look at kingdoms with integrated strats you may wonder what that means. It's a kingdom that builds and arranges sciences toward the strengths of a province, but each province is part of the whole. In this you'll see high concentrations in a given province with anemic ability elsewhere. It's like a phalanx. The anemic areas of one province are overstated in another. While many kingdoms do this to some degree, total kingdom strats are essentially built to the inth degree in their narrow field. As an example my province has science spread across all disciplines and built to cast and commit sabotage, while a narrow field province will have no science in certain areas and stacked in their strengths.

One of the difficulties in running experimentally is lack of cooperation. The tactics I'll use are both to affect the enemy and see how they're put together. Yesterday I cast Mystic Vortex on a pumped province not just to rid them of advantages, I also wanted to see what spells were in use. Sadly, I'm simply not deep enough across all fields to study all aspects of formidable enemies. I knew I could break them but no one in my kingdom was gathering intel or casting ops to offer a perspective.

The total disinterest in engaging a formidable enemy leaves us with too many mysteries. Sure, the monarch might be aware of the builds but the kingdom doesn't understand that we should be looking at exactly what it is that intimidates them. I'm simply not afraid of pumped enemies because I've engaged so many. What we want is information to give us understanding.

To be continued...

Even if we have mechanical knowledge, we shouldn't rest on that. What I mean is, you observe a kingdom that is superior to yours on the kingdom page. You know how they got there. Distilled into pure essence, the kingdom you're observing has more resources than yours. Are we satisfied with that for the continuing age? Is it that we're worried about losing even more resources in a world of keeping up with the Jones's?

You've got to have more than healthy respect for your competitors to not compete with them. Again, I come from a Dungeons & Dragons fundamental with many more years in paper & pencil gaming. We don't continue killing tribes of orcs at 5th level, we're ready to go after the dragon. And nobody ever asked us at 3rd level, but the answer is yes. Let's go after the dragon treasure.

They're suppose to be tough and these are our fellow players. Behind each legal province is a mind that we should always respect. We should also challenge them. For players and kingdoms we deem below our skill set we can tutor them through gentle example. When I've been engaged by enemies that attempt to push a military advantage I'll land ops and sabotage to demonstrate why you should be conscious of peripheral defense. Still, we can't do much experimenting with opponents we know we can defeat. In order to experiment we require information based on the superior advantage of the opponent.

To be continued again....

In conclusion I'm left with no choice but to seek a vacuum, possibly a kingdom shell to experiment unfettered.